That’s an interesting observation, however, in my faith is it quite different. We would say a spiritual path as well as a religious path are different stages of development. Religious paths are full of dogma, ritual and formality, and in our faith these would be adhered to strictly for a person who’s level of development makes them inclined toward a religious path. A spiritual path for us would be a more advanced state of being and much more demanding in that it can’t be achieved in a formulaic manner by following prescribed ritual and procedure. In other words, it can’t be faked. On the other hand, I can follow procedure and ritual, quote scripture and dogma and attend these with any manner of spiritual shortcoming and still be considered religious. As for spirituality, you either have reached that or you haven’t. This level of development requires that you see the Lord in everyone - none excluded, and that you love them fully, without condition or reservation. You have either reached that or you haven’t. So for us, religiousness is rather a sophomoric level of development, and spirituality requires all the skills learned back in the religious stage, fully applied in it’s fulfillment in the spiritual stage. Such a person will not rattle scripture at you, or tell you what the rules are. Such recitations are the practice of those still developing toward spirituality. In our scriptures, the Lord lists the various approaches one can take to Him. The religious path is one of the first.To give the curmudgeon’s answer:
One often describes themselves as “spiritual but not religious” if they are too lazy or weak-willed to commit to a religion but still want to have some way of justifying themselves as a “good person”
I always considered the two separate with more an emphasis on God with “spiritual”, and with more of an emphasis on the technicalities of religion with “religious”.
I would basically agree with this, but add that in my tradition, many of us practice our religion alone because there aren’t any groups within reasonable traveling distance. I do agree that spirituality is a much more personal affair.
Religion exists/is created to fulfill man’s need for spirituality, so I don’t know how the two can be legitimately separated. Modern spite at any attempt to “curtail” personal freedom to do whatever we want, when and as we like to do it, has lead to a negative reaction at Religion, which provides virtually every human society with its moral code. So the word has gained in modern times, a very negative meaning- Nonsensical legalistic systems purely for the sake of legalism and ritualism purely for its own sake…or for the purpose of curtailing individual freedoms and controlling people etc etc. That is obviously a caricuture. All spiritual systems that aim at man’s spiritual good in its methods and practices and attempts to explain reality to him is a religion. Take away the spirituality from each faith-system, and what you have is not a religion at all!
Religion is something that is adhered to.
your right bro, very detailed answer.
I think this is a very good answer. A ‘religion’ is usually a basic set of rules that a group of individuals follow as a way of life. It doesn’t necessarily have to be related to God, but most of the formal religions of the world live by a set of rules that are intended to lead us to God. Spirituality is the vehicle that is used to focus our attention more toward that goal. Some people may be very ‘religious’ by following the outward signs of adhering to the rules of a religion, but might not necessarily practice the inward signs of spirituality. Spirituality is the means that individuals use to focus their attention more fully on bonding with God as their final goal. They usually still practice the same religious rules as others do, but they progress more deeply into forming a true spiritual bond with God.
But the fact that some people practice religiosity does not mean that religion is to be confounded with religiosity. What religion exists that does not have spiritual aims? Which example can be given of a religion that boils down to a simple set of rules have no connection to spirituality?
I love all your posts. You have a sound Catholic mind. I offer this. You are discussing a noun and adjective. They are two different things. Religion is something. Relgiosity is something someone does. It would be safe to say that we should not confuse the two. What does happen is that Religion can become a concrete named thing that may cause cofusion. For example. Show me where you stepped on religion? Where is a bowl full of Religion? I think I left my religion at home in my drawer. It is not something that exists as a thing per se. Religiosity is something you can see that someone does as an act. It is descriptive of something someone does.
Technically, ideologies like humanism, atheism, vegetarianism, as well as some other ‘isms’ can also be considered to be forms of ‘religion’ that are not based on God, but loosely (sometimes even more fanatically) hold to a basic set of principles in the same way that spiritual religions do. I know it’s a bit of a stretch, but in a technical sense, they are followed by some people as ‘a way of life’, as ‘religiously’ as Catholicism or any other God-based religion is followed. I always get flak from atheists when I tell them that they practice a form of religion just like anyone else, except that their ‘religion’ is based on their denial of God.
Gotcha!Technically, ideologies like humanism, atheism, vegetarianism, as well as some other ‘isms’ can also be considered to be forms of ‘religion’ that are not based on God, but loosely (sometimes even more fanatically) hold to a basic set of principles in the same way that spiritual religions do. I know it’s a bit of a stretch, but in a technical sense, they are followed by some people as ‘a way of life’, as ‘religiously’ as Catholicism or any other God-based religion is followed. I always get flak from atheists when I tell them that they practice a form of religion just like anyone else, except that their ‘religion’ is based on their denial of God.
being focus was one of the most benificial result when you are into spirituality.